DATA2GO.NYC, the latest project from Measure of America,
is a free, easy-to-use mapping and analysis tool that brings together
for the first time federal, state, and local data vital to understanding
how multiple factors combine to influence New Yorkers’ well-being in
every neighborhood. It will be launched on October 28 with local
government and foundation leaders at a special event to be held at Civic
Hall in New York City. [Register to attend.]

The DATA2GO.NYC website and
mobile app contains 350 indicators for each of the city’s 59 community
districts, 150 of which are also available by census tract. Many
indicators were previously unavailable to the public, including data on
voting and philanthropic giving, or unavailable by community district,
such as police and health data. While many data tools focus on just one
sector— isolating health, housing, or employment, for example—DATA2GO
brings them all together, enabling a deeper understanding of how a
variety of issues interact to shape people’s choices and opportunities.

DATA2GO is designed to
empower people committed to social change to pinpoint groups and areas
that are facing particular challenges, craft effective solutions, and
track change over time. Users will be able to create unique maps,
prepare community district profiles, test relationships between
indicators across neighborhoods, and print or share their results at the
click of a button.

Measure of America will give a public presentation on DATA2GO.NYC the evening of November 10 in New York City as the inaugural session of Social Science After Hours,
a new series of opportunities for friends and fellows of the Council to
meet staff in a casual setting and learn about the newest work coming
out of SSRC programs. [RSVP to attend.]

In Council News

The Council is pleased to join the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (CASBS) in presenting a summit on “Knowledge”
that will bring together some of the world’s top social and behavioral
scientists in discussion with leaders in industry, media, and the
community to consider three central questions: How do we produce
knowledge? How do we disseminate it? How are we transforming the very
nature of knowledge itself? Keynote speakers will be Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, and former SSRC president and CASBS fellow Kenneth Prewitt,
now Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, director of the Future of
Scholarly Knowledge project, and special advisor to the president at
Columbia University. Board member
John Seely Brown, independent
cochairman of DeLoitte’s Center for the Edge, will serve as interlocutor
for panels on the “Future of Agency.” SSRC president Ira Katznelson and board member Margaret Levi,
director of CASBS, will offer closing remarks. The November 5 summit
will take place on the Stanford campus in Northern California. [Register to attend.]

President Ira Katznelson hosted a forum on Anxieties of Democracy as the feature story for Boston Review’s
fortieth anniversary issue, with respondents including scholars,
journalists, foundation leaders, and political organizers. The Anxieties of Democracy program welcomed its new director, Anoush F. Terjanian
[PDF], who will lead a next phase of activities centered on five working
groups exploring various stressors on democratic governance.

Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum deputy director Tatiana Carayannis and International Dissertation Research Fellowship fellow Louisa Lombard (2009) coedited and authored chapters in Making Sense of the Central African Republic, now available from the University of Chicago Press.

The African Peacebuilding Network’s latest policy brief
[PDF] made recommendations aimed at increasing the effectiveness of
African Union and United Nations peace operations in the Central African
Republic.

Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project director Leon Sigalwrote for the National Interest on the troubling rhetoric coming from both North and South Korea. He spoke to the Korea Times
about the US take on South Korean president Park Geun-hye’s decision to
attend China’s military parade commemorating the seventieth anniversary
of the end of World War II.

Executive director Mary McDonnell and sociologist Robert Dingwall drew on their forthcoming edited volume The SAGE Handbook of Research Management to arguefor stronger research leadership at universities in a piece for Times Higher Education.

A New York Times opinion piece examining the state of the public school system in post-Katrina New Orleans used data from the Measure of America report Zeroing In on Place and Race: Youth Disconnection in America’s Cities to illustrate the limits of recent reforms. MOA’s
role in sparking efforts to launch a charter school aimed at reclaiming
young people in Phoenix who are neither working nor in school was
highlighted in an article in the Arizona Republic, and codirector Sarah Burd-Sharps appeared on WNYC and Public Radio International’s The Takeaway
as well as National Public Radio’s DC-based program The Kojo Nnamdi Show to discuss the ties between youth disconnection and the decline in seasonal employment for teens.

The China-Africa Knowledge Project launched the CAKP Resource Hub Researcher Database,
an aggregation of over four hundred academics, practitioners, and PhD
candidates working on the China-Africa relationship. The CAKPWorking Group convened scholars, advisors, and partners for a two-day planning meeting
in New York to discuss emerging areas of China-Africa research and
challenges and capacity gaps in teaching the next generation of
scholars.

The Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum cohosted with the International Peace Institute a panel discussion
in New York in anticipation of the 2016 United Nations General Assembly
Special Session on the World Drug Problem, addressing key points of
debate, possible outcomes, and how to prepare for the session [video
available].

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship announced its new cohort:
sixty-four fellows will develop their projects through
interdisciplinary workshops and exploratory summer research on topics
from the regulation of alcohol in China to a global history of cancer
research.

In Memoriam

The Council mourns the passing of our former executive associate David L. Sills, distinguished sociologist, leading demographer, longtime editor of the SSRC publication Items, and editor of the classic 1968 International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
We remember David’s legendary editorial talent and passion and
celebrate the countless contributions he made in helping lead our
organization with distinction and grace from 1973 to 1989.

CORRECTION: In our original September 2015 Council Update, we stated that Robert Merton was coeditor of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. In fact, he was only coeditor of volume 19 of the encyclopedia.